A new liberal group is running a TV ad in Iowa attacking Howard Dean for his record on gun control. The ad says Dean was endorsed repeatedly by the National Rifle Association for governor of Vermont — which is true. Dean’s position has shifted a bit since then, however.

An anti-tax group started running an attack ad Thursday Dec. 4 in Iowa and New Hampshire saying “Howard Dean says he’ll raise taxes on the average family by more than nineteen hundred dollars a year.” Dean calls the ad “false,” but we find it is mostly right.

In my 33 years of covering Washington and national politics, I’ve had some of the best jobs in American journalism — including the development of “adwatch” and “factcheck” stories for CNN. And with the launch today of FactCheck.org I hope to continue my professional lucky streak. This is going to be a fun job — and somebody has to do it.
There already have been lots of dubious factual claims and outright falsehoods tossed around in the Presidential campaign: Howard Dean falsely claiming that most middle-class taxpayers got no tax cut,

In what it called the first salvo in a $10-million advertising campaign aimed at defeating President Bush, the liberal group MoveOn.org released a TV ad that is misleading on several counts. It falsely implies that tax cuts failed to create jobs, falsely implies that the economy is still losing jobs, and exaggerates the severity of an historically mild economic downturn.